Moving Towards Socialism #3

But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the “Pay for Performance Act of 2009,” would impose government controls on the pay of all employees — not just top executives — of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

The purpose of the legislation is to “prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards,” according to the bill’s language. That includes regular pay, bonuses — everything — paid to employees of companies in whom the government has a capital stake, including those that have received funds through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The measure is not limited just to those firms that received the largest sums of money, or just to the top 25 or 50 executives of those companies. It applies to all employees of all companies involved, for as long as the government is invested. And it would not only apply going forward, but also retroactively to existing contracts and pay arrangements of institutions that have already received funds.

Get that? You are a bank teller at the local branch of some bank that is partially-owned by some bigger bank that is owned by some big-ass bank that got some bail-out funds and because of this Barney Frank and his buddies are going to decide how much you should earn. Still I guess you could be lucky and your salary might actually increase, but seriously, is anyone feeling the least bit of lucky with these Bozos in charge?

Now me, I’m used to Congress setting my salary. But I knew that going in. But I got to wonder how everyone else feels about someone in Washington DC saying how much they are worth when they did not bargain for it in the first place.

Of course there is an upside. And that is that this also would apply to all the union auto workers who voted for Barry and the Dems and who now will have to do involuntarily what they refused to do voluntarily when it would help save their industry – that being to accept reasonable wage cuts and renegotiated bloated pensions/benefits.

Sweet irony.

And that brings up another thought. What about other smaller firms that didn’t directly get bail-out money but which are sub-contractors or just do business with those firms that did. Do they have to have the same restrictions on them? Will Goodyear employees have their salaries set because Goodyear has a contract to put tires on new GM cars? It’s bail-out money paying for those tires after all, right?

I could go on and on, but it is obvious that this is just another Administration grab for power. They are not-so slowly gaining control over our financial industry and one of our biggest manufacturing sectors and, while almost everyone sees nothing wrong with a little control over how tax money is being spent by these companies, now they are firing CEOs and even reaching down to the little guys and gals.

Which makes me laugh. But not with joy. I laugh at all those people who thought Bush was the one who was going to take the rights of Americans away. He was the evil one who trampled on the Constitution and listened to all of us farting in our bedrooms late at night after too many tacos and beer.